MS Dhoni doesn't attend meetings, he's a pure instinct man, reveals N Srinivasan

MS Dhoni has always been his own man when it comes to picking players and despite limited resources available at his disposal, he rose to become one of the greatest limited-overs skippers of all-time and the second most successful captain in the IPL. His records speak for his allure while the players he led during his tenure attest to the influence that the man from Ranchi had on them. N Srinivasan, the owner of the Indian Cements group, knows Dhoni better than anyone else and giving an account of the Jharkhand man, he said how Dhoni chooses to become his own man.

"There was one outstanding player that we suggested to MS, he said: 'no sir, he will spoil the team'. The cohesion within the team is important and see in America, the franchise-based sport has been there for such a long time. In India, we're just starting and we're new to it. But we at India Cements have had a lot of experience running teams at junior levels - Rahul has been part of us - one aspect is that we understood from the beginning is when you manage and run a team, you own the franchise, not the player. You own the team, but not each and every player,” Srinivasan said in a webinar hosted by the Great Lakes Institute of Management, reported ESPN Cricinfo.

"We're awash with data just now. To give you an example, there are bowling coaches and in a T20 game, they play videos of every batsman whom they're going to come against and they see how he got out, what's his strength, what's his weakness etc. So, MS Dhoni doesn't attend this, he's a pure instinct man. The bowling coach, [head coach Stephen] Fleming will be there and everybody will be there, everyone is giving opinions, he'll get up and go.”

Srinivasan feels that he can assess a batsman or player on the field without having to access raw data - something that gives him the edge to understand a player better.

"In the context of instinct, he feels that he can assess a batsman or player on the field, that's his judgement. On the other hand, there is so much data that is available to help a person also analyse. It's a very difficult line to draw [between data and instinct]. "If we're talking of competitive IPL or competitive T20, all of them are outstanding performers. To get 10-12 people together and to keep the peace between them itself is not an easy task," the former BCCI and ICC president added.